Writing together

Word count has hit all time low - nothing this week, except a few rewrites of a paragraph and some notes. I hang my head in shame.

But.

Boyf and I did get our entry for 'Tower of Blood' film treatment in to the people at jpeg films (being run by Frightfest http://www.frightfest.co.uk/) last weekend.

Writing together is a process of elimination. You have to work out who does what best and it isn't always what you think. I have always thought that as I type fast and think at the keyboard, I should be the one doing the actual writing. However, this goes to pot when the person you are working with sits three inches behind your left ear and mutters at every line you write. I get the urge to re-enact a horror film right there and then!

So, I pace and he types. Occasionally we swap, he'll go to the loo or make tea while I do a quick bit of editing or reading through and I don't mind him yelling from a distance, 'don't forget they need to absorb the evil!' 'OK, thanks, can I have a biscuit with that.'

Teaching has taken over my life recently. The students are varied and full of surprises. Which is as it should be. I am up to my eyes in paperwork, planning and (can't think of another 'p') train journeys.

Have promised students I will write 5,000 words by next week - so am charging up the laptop as I do this. Books for next term are being delivered from Amazon tonight - yippee! (The smell of new books is so exciting, or is that just me?) Hopefully I can try and get ahead with some reading on those long train journeys down to Southampton. This is always assuming I can stop falling asleep.

Off to write and read and powerpoint.....

Weekend what weekend

Blimey! Well, there's two days that whizzed by. Teaching on Saturday morning, then back home to finish slides for Horror and dig up notes for lecture on Queer theory. I finally think I'm getting to grips with this theory now, but will be glad when we can move on and hope that there won't be any tricky questions about it or that anyone wants any in depth stuff on Foucault.
Then I went up to west end to meet boyf who had been teaching Sitcom all day. Down the pub with the comedians - ho ho and back home to go to dinner at friends round the corner - although we were late because we sat down and promptly fell asleep like old people do.

Sunday, run (7.5KM 46mins), visit boyf's mum in hospital, pack four days worth of clothes, notes, memory sticks etc and get daily word count down.

Yes, I've been writing as well!!!

26,817 words - yey!!!

In some part this is thanks to MA friend who gave me lunch and a much needed boost on Friday. So, so lovely to have someone who will just listen and ask intelligent questions about your novel. Who feeds you yummy delicious things while doing so and finishes the whole thing up with home made chocolate cake and espresso. Not sure if it was friend, cake or coffee, but I got back and solved all sorts of problems in the story - so much so that I think (only think mind you) I may have the end.

No word from Auzzie prof dude about a supervision or meeting to discuss next stage.
Must start work on paper for November conference soon.

Meanwhile it is Sunday evening and I need a glass of wine and a crappy movie.

Getting up and getting on with it

The word count is slow. Mostly, because I'm finding it hard to heed my own advice and go for the word count. This has to be recitified, so I have decided (gulp) to post my word count up here as I go.
Today I'm at 18,000 edited words and 7,877 unedited - which is a total of just under 25,000. The aim is to get to 75,000 total by end of October.
Take a deep breath....and....go!


ps. Will post word count whenever I can get to this blog - ideally daily, but not sure if laptop will do it when in Solent.